Co-working spaces are a hot topic for today’s workforce. While they’re a relatively new innovation, this is one trend that looks like it’s here to stay. There’s a growing population of remote workers, freelancers, and startup companies that are driving the movement.

 

If you’re considering utilizing a co-working space, but aren’t sure if it’s right for you, let’s look at some of the pros and cons.

 

PROS

 

• It saves money.

 

It doesn’t matter whether you’re self-employed, or a remote worker for your job. Everyone in business is concerned with the bottom line, and we all need to find ways to save money. When you rent a conventional office, there’s almost always going to be some amount of wasted space and therefore money. With a co-working space, you only pay for the desk or desks that you need, and there are typically a number of perks and amenities, like coffee, WiFi, and parking, for icing on the cake.

 

• It’s a professional space.

 

You may be able to get by, for some time, working out of your home, with an occasional visit to a coffee shop when you need to meet a client, or just for a change of scenery. But let’s face it, neither your kitchen table nor the cafe are really what we would call a truly professional environment. A co-working space, however, provides a space in which you can entertain a client and make a great impression. And for many of us, being in an environment that is specifically dedicated to work puts us more in a productive frame of mind, compared to working from our homes, where we’re used to going to relax.

 

• It’s a great opportunity to network.

 

One of the benefits of being in a co-working space is that you become a member of a diverse community of workers, which opens up a wealth of networking possibilities. Chances are that you’ll be sharing your space with people from different companies and even different fields. This offers the opportunity to get different perspectives, which may help you solve a problem. You may also discover that the partner you need to find for a particular project may be working right there in your office!

 

CONS

 

• There’s limited privacy.

While a co-working space has the buzz and energy of a thriving, active community, you may find that you don’t have sufficient privacy for some of your more sensitive work. Most co-working spaces have dedicated areas for making private calls and so on, but you may have to make some compromises in this area.

 

• You may have distractions to deal with. Moving your work from your house to a co-working space will eliminate some of the distractions that surround us in our own homes. But it may bring a new set of distractions due to the activity of other workers in the space. In all likelihood, this won’t be much worse, though, than the distractions you’d find in a conventional office.

 

While it may not be total paradise, we think that a co-working space provides an excellent work environment for many people. Give us a call or stop in for a visit to see if our solutions meet your needs.